A Year in the Valley

So, this small tortoiseshell was spotted down at The Shack in Portmellon, while we were having a cheeky ‘wine break’. But it’s one of my favourite butterflies (I know I said that about the speckled wood, and I love the comma as well, and the common blue …). I mean, how can so much pattern fit into such a small area!

Meanwhile, in the watermeadow clumps of purple loosestrife have been spearing their way up through the grass and even up into the alders. I noticed a clump in the middle of the valley and thought they were new, but when I looked at last September’s picture, I saw that they were there last year too.

Then, we spotted a kingfisher in one of next door’s trees. We haven’t seen one for at least a couple of years – so that was good!

Can you guess what this is? It’s a lizard’s tail. We know this because we were there when it shed its tail and scuttled off into the flower bed. We picked the tail up from the grass, when it had stopped wriggling (a bit gross) and photographed it on the roof of the barbecue bunker. I didn’t see the rusty nail at the time, but it gives a bit of depth to the photo. The lizard was quite small and the tail wasn’t bleeding. This is because the lizard has a built-in line, called a fracture plane, along which the muscles spasm and pull apart to release the tail, when the lizard’s life is threatened. There is no blood loss, as you can see from the photo, and the new tail will grow back within 6-12 months. I had never seen this happening before.

Seen yesterday, in the garden, a sparrowhawk flying right into the trees in our garden and not being successful in grabbing one of the small birds that usually sit there. He looks really fed up about that and rather menacing, don’t you think? After rethinking his plan on the wheelbarrow handle, he flew off down behind the shed and from there into the valley.

Finally, birds on the wires. They were too far away to identify, but we have lost the swifts already and I think the housemartins will be off soon. These were obviously mustering ready for a flight.

My best photo of July was taken just after we returned from holiday (16 July) – a male beautiful demoiselle. I was hoping it might be a banded demoiselle because of the translucent bit at the base of each wing, but banded demoiselles have a definite ‘thumb print’ of shade on translucent wings.

Things that flowered:

The ragwort had come into flower and the cinnabar moth that we saw earlier in the summer had obviously been at work:

I was hoping to see them growing bigger with more defined stripes, but I didn’t. I wondered if a bird had eaten them despite their waspish colouring, but I found out that they have few predators, as the ragwort poison is stored in the body of a cinnabar caterpillar, even into moth-hood, and their vivid stripes act as a warning of their foul taste to birds.

At the end of the month, I saw the final instar of a blue shieldbug. The sheer number and variety of sheildbugs has delighted me since I started naturewatching. The intricate patterning of some of the instars and adults is amazing.

I wondered why the instar wasn’t blue in colour, but if you look at the darker head and wing-buds they have a green-blue sheen to them.

Although my project has now finished, I am still spotting things in the garden and watermeadow and I was wondering what to do about that. So, I figured I would save the photos in a folder and maybe do a monthly post, now all the evaluating and concluding has finished.

I couldn’t resist a photo of the speckled wood. It’s one of my favourite butterflies. It was also the same day (11 June) I spotted a heron in one of next door’s trees.

I don’t know if you can spot it too, it’s quite well camouflaged, but look for the eye just above the centre to the left! Other notable spottings in June are below…

Above picture: The greater-spotted woodpecker has started visiting our bird-feeder.

I have learned to be more patient and observant outdoors.  I’ve enjoyed spending time in the watermeadow more than ever, except during Lockdown, when I was in the garden every day.  I have learned how challenging it can be to identify similar-looking species and have been amazed by the sheer number of species and sub-species to choose from.  While I didn’t delve deeply into every living thing I spotted, I did learn a bit about each one, and I would explore further if something piqued my curiosity.  Finally, despite hearing about declining populations, I was buoyed with hope at the numbers of butterfly and beetle species that live in or visit the watermeadow.

The project took a lot of time, even over the winter when I was only posting three times a week.  Walking round the watermeadow and taking photos was the fun bit.  Putting together a post and uploading images and a paragraph of text, was the quick bit.  Scheduling posts helped too.  The slow and sometimes tedious bit was identification and research.  Sometimes I would spend a couple of hours on one bug or plant and reach a conclusion only to find I’d missed a feature that ruled it out – and I’d have to start again.  However, I think it would be beneficial to repeat the whole project in five years’ time to see if anything has changed.  So watch this space…

Above picture: A sparrowhawk breakfasting on the lawn.

Things I didn’t include

• Barn owl – the photo I used as an icon for my blog was taken in January 2023, when it was a regular visitor at dusk that winter.  We haven’t spotted it since.
• Earwig – spotted 16 July 2023.  I didn’t count it because I wasn’t happy with the photo.  Actually, there’s nothing wrong with the photo. 
• Greater spotted woodpecker – spotted 28 July – turned his head away as I took the photo. 
• Bat – spotted throughout the summer.  I finally got a photo with a couple of bats in it on 9 September, but the bats were just blurry smudges, and I wouldn’t have been able to identify the species.
• Tiny slug – photographed on 23 September – but I couldn’t find any information on it.
• Green woodpecker – spotted 1 October.  I thought I would get a better photo, but I didn’t.
• Hart’s tongue fern and tree ferns – I could have included these, as although we planted them, they are commonly found growing wild in Cornwall. 
• Black redstart – spotted 23 October on the balcony railing so it couldn’t be counted.
• Weasel – Mr C spotted it on 26 October, but it got away.
• Unarmed stick-insect – spotted 27 January 2024 – but I couldn’t count it because it was in the front garden.
• Water plantain, wandering pond snail and fool’s watercress – all spotted in May 2024 – photographed but I wasn’t confident in my identification.
• Horse flies – very common, especially down by the stream.  They are too fast to photograph, but I could have snapped a bite, as evidence.  I didn’t think of that!
• Plus grasses, plants and sedges that remain unidentified.

Other Visitors … Past

There were some species, like the barn owl, that visited in our first four years living here, but not during the year of my count.  Or at least, if they did, we weren’t looking at the right time to see them. 

• A roe deer spotted a handful of times in the early morning in April 2023.
• The coal tit, nuthatch, greenfinch, chaffinch and bullfinch.  We spotted the bullfinch in next door’s willow just before the count started!. 
• A snipe on the bank of the stream – 19 January 2022.
• A kingfisher – 8 February 2022.
• Pigmy shrews, along with the mice and voles, were regularly spotted in the undergrowth while we were gardening.

…and Present

Afterwards, during the rest of June, I spotted a bright red cinnabar moth flying across the watermeadow on the bank, and some scarlet pimpernel blooming on the ramp. 

Today, I spotted this jay in the alders. I managed to get a shot as it flew off and was astonished to see that its wing pattern looks like the face of a fierce animal.

I logged a total of 279 species over the year.  But, when I was compiling a book of this blog, I noticed that the burdock gall fly had been incorrectly identified and was, in fact, a yellow dung fly.  So the total has to be adjusted down to 278.  But, if I were to add up all the species that I actually saw in the watermeadow (not the top garden or front garden) from 5 June 2023 to 4 June 2024, it would come to well over 290, with unidentified grasses, plants and sedges.